Tropocalities

Pacific Islands Monthly

Magazine Section

The Clasped Hands of

Friendship

TONGA’S new Parliamentary mace, presented in August at the ceremony of the signing of the new Treaty of Friendship, is in the tradition of the Fijian mace —which was originally King Cakobau’s war club.

Tonga’s mace is fashioned from a war club once used by Tonga’s King Tupou I, who died in 1893.

He gave it to a missionary who took it to England.

It was returned to Queen Salote by Britain in 1953 when she visited London for Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. Later, it was suggested as a mace, so it was sent to London again for ornamenting with silver.

The head of the mace has a replica of the Tongan crown, and on bands of silver appear the names of island groups and islands of the Kingdom, and crossed hands, the symbol of friendship, a device which frequently appears in connection with Tongan external relations.

The symbol was specially woven into a mat used during the Tongan feast following the recent signing of the Treaty (see photograph).

It was also used earlier this year on a sadder occasion—as a motif on the official Tongan wreath placed on the tomb of Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna, when he was buried in the Lau group of Fiji. Lau—and Ratu Sir Lala—had early Tongan con nections. The Tongans have always been conscious of history.

They're Using Atoms These Days

TX)R almost 60 years the British I 1 Admiralty has held land leases in Vavau and Nukualofa, Tonga, but it is now in the process of giving them up. The reason for this, according to Sir Ronald Garvey, a few days before he re tired as Governor of Fiji in August, is that Britain wants to make a gesture of goodwill to Tonga.

Maybe he’s right. Maybe, though, the reason is that progress has kind of caught up with Britain — for the leases are for coaling stations in those two centres.

The Admirality was granted the leases in 1900, just before Britain and Tonga signed their first Treaty of Friendship and Protection. One

of the reasons Britain wanted that Treaty was that if Britain didn’t protect Tonga, somebody else would and that other protective power would thus have ports within striking distance of the British Colony of Fiji.

Announcement of the surrender of the coaling leases was made by Sir Ronald at Nukualofa on August 26, which was the day he signed Britain’s new Treaty of Friendship with Tonga.

How to Become a Has-Bean TESTS on samples of allegedly poisonous beans from the Goilala district of Papua have shown the beans produce prussic acid under certain circumstances.

Beans of this type are believed to have caused the deaths recently of two people in a village near Guari.

Officials at Tapini, in the Goilala district, had become suspicious at the sudden incidence of deaths, though they were unable to prove them anything but accidental.

The poisonous variety of bean is similar in appearance to the ordinary home grown bean which many natives cultivate in their gardens.

Laboratory tests by the Dept, of Agriculture in Port Moresby have shown that the beans contain a substance which produces the poison, hydrogen cyanide (prussic acid) under certain circumstances.

The poison was produced by pul verising beans and moistening them.

An Agricultural spokesman said that hydrogen cyanide could usually be oxidised by cooking.

But, he added, it was doubtful if this would occur while the hard bean skin remained intact.

He said if the method of pre paration involved cooking the beans, then mashing them followed by further cooking, most of the poison produced would probably be destroyed.

A Special Kind of Milk Run NEW GUINEA natives in the Telefomin district are pioneer ing a trade route to Dutch New Guinea, according to a September report from there. An ADO said all groups of people south of the Hindenburg ranges now owned round-headed Dutch axes,

The clasped hands of friendship are portrayed in this fine Tong an mat especially woven for the occasion of the signing of the new Treaty of Friendship between Britain and Tonga. The mat was used as a canopy over the official table at the Royal feast at Nukualofa. See the item this page. Photo Rob Wright, Fiji PRO.

and one man had been seen wearing shorts and a shirt from across the border.

The trade route apparently lies south-west across the foothills of the Star Mountains in Dutch New Guinea, where the Dutch shortly plan a major scientific expedition No doubt there are plenty of similar trade routes operating across various parts of the Australian- Dutch border.

The natives don’t bother much about borders that are, anyway, only lines on a map.

Or do they?

I remember an American, Oscar Meyer, who was in Dutch New Guinea at the end of last year, telling me later that one night at a village not far out of Hollandia he found a big sing-sing going on, and Pidgin being spoken. The Pidgin speakers turned out to be a big team of natives from Aitape, well down the coast on the Aus tralian side.

They had come up in canoes on a visit for a few days, a regular thing, Oscar gathered.

He also gathered that if he had been an Australian, instead of

American, he would not have learned the visitors’ identity, be cause they were very wary of telling him anything until they knew where he came from.

Oscar considered that the moral to this probably was that Aitape natives didn’t like Australians.

Perhaps he’s right. But being an Australian myself, I prefer to think that the moral probably was that Aitape natives didn’t like Aus tralians finding out they regularly border-hopped in order to drink beer. They can’t drink at home.

And drinking Dutch beer, at the invitation of their Dutch New Guinea native hosts, the visitors certainly were, according to Oscar! —SI.

First, Trap Your Crocodile

lESSONS in how to avoid i crocodile attacks will be given to harassed natives at Popon detta, northern Papua. This sounds like carrying coals to Newcastle, but the Administration field staff has reported that this is necessary because of the numbers of natives who have been killed by crocodiles

in the last few years. A common entry in Village Books is, “Deceased, taken by crocodile”.

“Village people seem almost foolhardy in their complete lack of respect for a crocodile,” according to Cadet Patrol Officer J. H. Roach.

Because of the threat crocodiles presented to the village of Bakumbari, the entire settlement was shifted to a safer area.

But things don’t seem to be so very much better, so natives in the area will be taught how to trap crocodiles, using timber traps baited with meat.

They're Still Crossing the

Kokoda Trail

ALTHOUGH it’s more than 15 years since Australian troops pushed the Japanese back over the ranges, via Papua’s famous Kokoda Trail, the trail has not yet become a highway—or even much of a path—and the best method of getting to Kokoda is still by air.

But history-minded people still follow the trail occasionally—and still, despite the passage of the years, find plenty of reminders of that six-months’ battle.

One of the latest parties to cross, in September, comprised three members of the P-NG Volunteer Rifles, which is NG’s Citizens’

Forces unit—Lt. T. A. Milan, Warrant Officer J. H. Sherwin and Corporal J. Dax.

They made the trip with the object of checking and amending strip maps and sketches of the track, it took seven days.

They reported finding live mortar bombs and cartridges lying across the track. They located a mortar baseplate and bipod near Alola, together with a rusted Lewis gun.

. An 2 they found Australian

slouch hats still swinging from branches of trees, parked there, no doubt, by the troops. Now the hats are swinging 15 ft off the ground, having been taken higher up as the trees grew.

A N “infernal machine” is how a PIM correspondent quaintly, if accurately, describes a contrap tion which got a young Vietnamese into trouble at Santo, New Hebrides, in September. Planning to go fish ing in a scientific fashion, the man mixed gunpowder, phosphorous and heads together in a jam tin.

But the “machine” exploded prema turely, and blew his hand off.